Objectives

Healthy Campus 2020 provides 10-year national objectives for improving the health of all students, staff, and faculty on campuses nationwide. To determine the success of Healthy Campus on your campus and nationally, it is important to measure and track progress over time.

The objectives in Healthy Campus 2020 are derived from Healthy People 2020 and were selected based on their relevance to college health and the existence, with rare exception, of a national data source to measure and benchmark. Paralleling Healthy People 2020, national Healthy Campus 2020 targets were established based on 10% improvements.

Healthy Campus 2020 is intended to provide institutions of higher education with a framework by which to identify priorities and mobilize action. Priority areas, objectives, and targets should be tailored to the specific needs of your campus community; they do not need to be exactly the same as Healthy Campus 2020. For resources on tailoring and implementing Healthy Campus 2020 to meet the specific needs of your community, visit the MAP-IT section.

Student Objectives

The national student objectives are comprised of 11 topic areas and 54 objectives. The majority of topics and objectives were derived from Healthy People 2020 but were adapted to align with national datasets specific for the target population. Topics and objectives reflect the major public health concerns impacting college students in the United States and were chosen based on their ability to motivate action, the availability of data to measure progress, and their relevance as broad public health issues. One new topic area, Academic Impediments, was developed to better align Healthy Campus 2020 with the academic goals of institutions of higher education. Five objectives with the greatest combined frequency and severity of impact, based on Spring 2010 ACHA-NCHA II data, were selected for inclusion: stress, sleep difficulties, anxiety, cold/flu/sore throat, and work.

Faculty/Staff Objectives

For the first time, Healthy Campus provides national objectives for faculty and staff. This addition is a result of the recent increase in the number of college health professionals addressing the needs of faculty and staff on their campuses. Objectives and recommended sources for data mirror Healthy People 2020.

The framework for serving faculty and staff as part of Healthy Campus 2020 is built upon 3FOUR50. This user-driven connect, collaborate, and create approach involves many different disciplines to reduce the global epidemic of chronic disease. According to 3FOUR50, "There are 3 risk factors — tobacco use, poor diet (including the harmful use of alcohol) and lack of physical activity — which contribute to four chronic diseases — heart disease, type 2 diabetes, lung disease and some cancers — which, in turn, contribute to more than 50% of preventable deaths in the world." Therefore, the Healthy Campus Faculty/Staff Objectives focus on nutrition/weight status, physical activity/fitness, stress management, and a few other items relevant to campus work environments.

Developmental Sources

In a few rare situations an objective was determined important to include and a data source identified, but numeric values are not yet available. Campuses may have their own data sources for objectives such as this, but no national benchmark is currently available.